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Help with Russia

Playing as Russia and I believe I've done it poorly but don't know how I could do better. Its 1898 my literacy rate is at 42% and my research rate is at 39%. Average conscious is 1.89. My NF were mainly dedicated to clergy. I read somewhere on the forum that Russia should try and get all regions to 2% clergy so that is what I've been doing. Only time I didn't was to colonize and to get some capitalist. I built most of the railroads myself since I had so few capitalists. Just recently in my game do the capitalists actually help me out and build railroads and factories.

For techs the techs that got the prioritizes were the ones that increase research and education modifier.

So how could I have done better? I'm not that happy with the tech rate at only 39%

On a side note I have a question about battles. If I have a fort in a prov and a single brigade there to protect it and it gets attacked. Will the armies I send to reinforce it receive the defense bonus as well?

Playing as Russia and I believe I've done it poorly but don't know how I could do better. Its 1898 my literacy rate is at 42% and my research rate is at 39%. Average conscious is 1.89. My NF were mainly dedicated to clergy. I read somewhere on the forum that Russia should try and get all regions to 2% clergy so that is what I've been doing. Only time I didn't was to colonize and to get some capitalist. I built most of the railroads myself since I had so few capitalists. Just recently in my game do the capitalists actually help me out and build railroads and factories.

For techs the techs that got the prioritizes were the ones that increase research and education modifier.

So how could I have done better? I'm not that happy with the tech rate at only 39%

On a side note I have a question about battles. If I have a fort in a prov and a single brigade there to protect it and it gets attacked. Will the armies I send to reinforce it receive the defense bonus as well?

Russia can be tricky and it is due to low con mostly, which in my experience limits people from promoting/demoting or changing ideology.

I usually go for ideological thought first, as it gives you one more NF and all those nice plurality events. After that go for techs that increase RP when possible and those that increase education efficiency until you research Biologism and keep NF-ing clergy, basically what you did. Sphere China, Guangxi or Panjab for the precious tea for your clergy and keep taxes as low as you can for your poor strata to enable them to promote to clergy.

Keep picking events that increase con and do everything else to increase it, like having high badboy. Your growing clergy will be lowering it significantly.

Don't build factories until 1870's. That's when you unleash Russia upon the unsuspecting world - switch to Traditional Academia and research those economy/industry techs. Switch at least one of the clergy NF and promote capis in most populous states. With SP party, build your best factories and let capis get the money. When they reach 0.1-0.2 percent in one state, switch to promoting capis in other states. After a decade or two, you may switch to interventionist or even LF as you will have enough capis and your factories will be efficient enough.

Don't build factories until 1870's. That's when you unleash Russia upon the unsuspecting world - switch to Traditional Academia and research those economy/industry techs. Switch at least one of the clergy NF and promote capis in most populous states. With SP party, build your best factories and let capis get the money. When they reach 0.1-0.2 percent in one state, switch to promoting capis in other states. After a decade or two, you may switch to interventionist or even LF as you will have enough capis and your factories will be efficient enough.

How do you maintain your GP status until the 70s if you have 0 Industrial score until then?

A few wars with uncivs will give you some additional prestige which coupled with your military score will give you enough points to remain a GP, probably with score to spare.

Only a few nations have significant industries anyway (US, UK, France, Prussia-NGF-Germany and Austria), others who tend to wander in the GP list have industry score of a few dozen points (Netherlands, Sweden, Bavaria etc...) but they will be so much behind you in terms of military and prestige that your GP status won't ever be at risk.

Without factories into the 1870s, what do you do about unemployment? Without jobs, those people leave your country.

No, they move to those conquered uncivs which are now your colonies, assisted by those education efficiency techs which encourage people to move to the colonies, which has the added benefit of easier conversion to states later.

Anyway, even if they do move abroad, Russia has such a huge population that even if few millions move it won't feel it.

It does have a rather unhistorical flavour that your most populous states tend to be Khiva, Guryev, Alaska and Manchuria, though.

I would never have thought that waiting until 1870 to begin industrializing was a viable strategy. I can see researching cultural techs using the Avante-garde Intelligentsia for 20 years to get some education efficiency, RPs, and Nationalism and Imperialism, but that just takes you to the mid 50s. After that, I'd think you would need the ready cash from the first steps of industrialization (mechanical production, basic railroads, medicine, power techs) just to fuel imperialism against your neighbors. Furthermore, Russia sits on piles of resources that can be used to easily fuel industrialization. You have iron, coal, and timber handy, so it's not like you have to import stuff to get initial factories going.

Now, I can understand saying, "I only want basic industrialization until 1870, so I focus on glass, liquor, wine, and maintenance/railroad goods like cement, lumber, and steel." There's generally no hurry to build weapon factories and you don't need steamer factories until you are serious about building a real navy.

EDIT: And due to dye shortages on the WM, clothing factories are not always a good choice. Keeping it simple until you get synthetic dye and the high tech luxury goods is a sound strategy.

All Hail Him,

The Secret Master

Note: If I write a post in this hideous color, I am speaking as a Demi-Moderator. Paying attention is strongly advised.

Well, I'd interpret "don't build any factories" liberally. Better wording would be "don't rush industrialization". A basic factory here and there wouldn't hurt but there's no need. Russia has no shortage of money and in the beginning, sphering China and its artisans might as well force even your basic factories into red, so you'd just end up with more expenses.

Although this is a non-Russia question, I'd like to ask whether luxury factories are a good idea. Because although their price is through the roof, and demand is 5-10 times supply, mine always kept being shut down. Even though normal equivalent prices were tame and they were available in about a market equilibrium (supply and demand matching within +/-10% or less). And the special ingredients (silk and tropical wood) were overproduced, thus dirt cheap.

Luxury factories are only useful once you have enough efficiency in your factories AND if you have access to silk/tropical wood. If you are short the resources, they will fail. If your efficiency is too low, the operating costs will be too high.

All Hail Him,

The Secret Master

Note: If I write a post in this hideous color, I am speaking as a Demi-Moderator. Paying attention is strongly advised.

Luxury factories are only useful once you have enough efficiency in your factories... If your efficiency is too low, the operating costs will be too high.

So, is the workforce pay + maintenance cost paid after the factory too high to be produced from the low rate of common goods-> luxury goods conversion? So that one can only pay the former if high tech gives enough conversion rate to actually draw enough money from the huge price gap?

If so, I suppose fixing this would only take rewriting the factory parameters to be, like, double? I'm no modder though.

No, you don't want to mod it. Even with Tier 3 industrial and commercial techs, they are profitable if the inputs are available.

They aren't profitable if you are Russia, it's 1838, you have no industrial or commercial techs, and you have no significant capitalists in the state. The cost of inputs is too high compared to what the factory can efficiency produce.

Assuming you have AHD (and I can't tell since you have no games registered), you really need both industrial and commercial techs to make factories reliably profitable. Straight up industrializing as Russia right out of the gate in the first years of the game is a bad idea because your economy and technology are not in a position to really engage in industrialization. That's one of the advantages France, UK, and USA have over other countries. They are head in certain techs that are relevant here. France can build a luxury furniture factory on day 1 and have it be profitable. Russia just can't. You gotta play catch up first.

If you mod the game to increase efficiency, then when the techs finally apply, they will be way over efficient.

All Hail Him,

The Secret Master

Note: If I write a post in this hideous color, I am speaking as a Demi-Moderator. Paying attention is strongly advised.

Playing as Russia and I believe I've done it poorly but don't know how I could do better. Its 1898 my literacy rate is at 42% and my research rate is at 39%. Average conscious is 1.89. My NF were mainly dedicated to clergy. I read somewhere on the forum that Russia should try and get all regions to 2% clergy so that is what I've been doing. Only time I didn't was to colonize and to get some capitalist. I built most of the railroads myself since I had so few capitalists. Just recently in my game do the capitalists actually help me out and build railroads and factories.

For techs the techs that got the prioritizes were the ones that increase research and education modifier.

So how could I have done better? I'm not that happy with the tech rate at only 39%

On a side note I have a question about battles. If I have a fort in a prov and a single brigade there to protect it and it gets attacked. Will the armies I send to reinforce it receive the defense bonus as well?

Focus on culture techs, Ideological thought is the best tech to get first (with almost any country). Start with your largest Russian culture states and get your bureaucrat pop percent to 1% of population. This will increase the rate at which you can promote. Once you get 1% bureaucrats start NFing clergymen in that state. You will aim for 4-4.5% clergymen in a state then move to your next most populous states until you have NFd all your states to 1% bureaucrats and 4-4.5% clergymen. You should try to get Biologism as early as you can because it provides a huge education efficiency boost but getting more NFs and the Research point techs are the most important. Getting to 4-4.5% clergymen will probably take half the game but you will be gaining literacy like mad.

As far as the other areas of the game Russia should be able to defend itself with it's large army pretty easily as long as you stay below the infamy limit. Remember that the military tactics techs are the most important military techs and should always be favored if you don't have them yet. You can easily expand South into Central Asia as historical without many military techs. You may need to research some economy improving techs if you are finding your budget restrictive or want to keep poor taxes low to increase your overall promotion.

Edit: For industrialization what you should do is build a factory in every state in the country. I like to try to build a balance of many different basic factories so that I can produce everything myself. Having a factory in every state encourages craftsmen to promote so that when the literacy starts kicking in there is a place for craftsmen and clerks to go. The factories won't be very profitable at first but mid to late game you will have the RPs to focus on economy techs and you will get a ton of promotion.

-poor taxes low
-middle taxes high
-lower tariffs
-pay fully for education and administration
-get national focus techs first
-get the left most industrial tech column and the freedom of trade commerce tech column

once you get your big states taken care of you get a lot of natural clergy promotion and it seems they emigrate around the country so you only have to make it 1/2-3/4 of the way through your list of states. Low taxes and tariffs on the poor probably give you a 10-20% boost to your promotion in non NF states so it adds up over time.

-poor taxes low
-middle taxes high
-lower tariffs
-pay fully for education and administration
-get national focus techs first
-get the left most industrial tech column and the freedom of trade commerce tech column

once you get your big states taken care of you get a lot of natural clergy promotion and it seems they emigrate around the country so you only have to make it 1/2-3/4 of the way through your list of states. Low taxes and tariffs on the poor probably give you a 10-20% boost to your promotion in non NF states so it adds up over time.

Are rich taxes low or high? I'm not sure how you can balance the budget like that, especially without Freedom of Trade and its subsequents.

By 1901, Russia was 1st in the world overall...immediately in the 1830's, I rushed industrialization in russia...researched culture, industry, and commerce techs only. taxed the crap out of everyone. built factories where they actually had the resources to be productive! Vladivostok was founded in 1844...First railroad was built around 1847...built the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Russia by 1864

also forget NF'ing clergy...its useless. the only NF's I did was a mix over time of craftsmen, bureaucrats, clerks, and capitalists. officers a bit in the beginning to get the leadership up.

Are rich taxes low or high? I'm not sure how you can balance the budget like that, especially without Freedom of Trade and its subsequents.

Rich taxes shouldn't matter for clergy, so whatever you need to set it at to balance the budget. Since all you need for poor pops to promote to clergy is for them to be meeting their life needs I'm not sure you really need low tariffs either. I've been playing with maximum tariffs with no problem, although I do have the southern Chinese states sphered, so that is a pretty big supply of agricultural products they have for their needs within my own sphere.

So bureaucrats have an effect on how fast POPs are promoted? Perhaps that is my problem I have very few I was rushing clergy for tech. I can't remember when I industrialize it was prob well after 1870.

Also whats the deal with placing China in your sphere? I've seen people say its a great idea and prob just as many saying it will wreck your economy.